Our Inherent Desire

     As per the request of my professor, I read two very intriguing and enlightening passages:
The Photographer's Eye by John Szarkowski and Why We Make Pictures by Hirsch.
     The latter passage brought up the question of why everyone is born with this inherent desire to make pictures whether that be with a photograph or a canvas or a slate of marble, we all seek to make the mundane special. Upon reading this, I really connected with this feeling and began to have flash backs of when I was just a child. For whatever reason it is built into our bones; the uncontrollable urge to fill the pure white, blank, and empty page of paper up with lively colors and create new worlds and stories along with them; to give the shape of a castle to something as shapeless as the sand; and the same goes with photography.
     This provides a proper segway into the former passage I read. With the birth and evolution of photography, we could see this inherent desire bloom like wildfire. Most adults grow out of making art from paints and sculpture mainly because they don't have the aptitude, so they find other interests to fill that void. But with the dawn of the camera, that all changed. Not every man could be a Picasso, but every man had the same potential to be a photographer as it was easy to use and inexpensive. Many criticized this craze due to the fact that many photographers had no purpose or meaning in their work. But they couldn't be more wrong, according to Szarkowski. Through photography we could see hundreds more facial expressions and tens more hand gestures than a traditional artist, we could stop time and see a horse in full gallop or depict the speed of a busy intersection. Photography though limited by reality can do pretty much anything because reality is truly boundless

Day 1

This past Tuesday, myself along with my classmates we got to go on a field trip, one that we will be making every week from now on.  We visited the wonderful people at the Brain Fitness Club, a club in which all of its members live with memory loss. Like any first day at a job, or a school, it was a little awkward making introductions and finding things to ask them. But after a while we just engaged in idle chit-chat about our interests and our families. For the sake of confidentiality, I will only be using the first letter of the names of the people I was so lucky to exchange words with. We sat in a round table format with R, P, S, and B. We certainly weren't the loudest bunch, that's for certain but we did share a fair amount about ourselves despite it being our first time meeting. R and P both love to watch football. B played soccer in their youth but mostly has played and written piano music. And finally, S has a wonderful sense of humor and continues to dance as they have for most of their life. When hearing them talk you could almost automatically get a sense as to how their memory loss affects them, but despite that they are really quite unique like everyone else. I can't wait to go back and find out more about them.
 Until next time.

The Tourist Ideal

As a native Floridian, I am very familiar with tourists. They always seem to have that dumb looking expression of awe and wonder, and they literally take pictures of everything. I've never really understood this, why take so many pictures? The time you spend with your head in your phone, taking pictures should be used for making memories because after all, that's why you came in the first place. But then I read these essays by Joerg Colberg, and they gave me insight as to why photography is so important to memory. He speaks of the photographs we take on our phones, and how like our memories, "they are fleeting, they can be manipulated easily, and by their very nature, there are a lot of them, existing in some badly organized state." Over a short period of time, the memory might be distorted and "edited" in a way. Which explains the tourists annoying fascination with photography. Many tourists may never go back to the place they visited,  making their memories scarce in the near future, so they take as many pictures as they can. And when they look back on those images they might recall the feelings and other sweet memories of that time. Those memories come back even stronger when you are the photographer, because in your mind you kind of see your self as an artist and this is your work. "Is it then surprising how much we revere our own, how much energy we put into them?"

Please check these essays out they are really well written:

http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/photography_and_memory/

http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/photography_and_memory_part_2/

Welcome!

   This blog honestly has not the least to do with photographic memory, but rather has much more to do with photography and memory. 
   Hi I'm Grace and this is my blog. I am for the most part a traditional artist with pencil and paint, however I am truly fascinated with learning about all kinds of art and now I've set my sights on photography and the digital arts. 
   As a college student, the main objective of this blog is to fulfill an assignment, but this is also a chance for me to expand my boundaries and more importantly, share with the world the importance this course plays. 
    It's a subject that we always seem to dodge, one we look on in horror; it's not just the idea of getting old and dying, but the idea that when we get old we might not be able to remember our life experiences, our loved ones, or how to do simple tasks simply terrifies us. For those of us who have first- hand experience with family or friends afflicted by dementia or Alzheimer's, it can be hard sometimes to look past all the bad to see the good. But this is what this blog is for!
    My goal is to change the narrative, to show that even though they go through rough times, those affected by these diseases are still people like us who want to enjoy their lives. And you guessed it,    I will be doing this through photography.
   Until next time, stay cool everyone.


P.S. I've got another blog running in conjunction with this one, feel free to check it out!
Digital Grace  - https://blogdigitalgrace.blogspot.com/